Evening Prayer (Mojo)

Sacred choral music will always, always make me think of Catherine. Tonight, in the stillness of a sanctuary surrounded by howling wind, I listened to a day's end prayer service with the Minnesota Compline Choir. A friend is a member of the choir, and when I was trying to decide whether to go to the bar tonight or to the compline service (it actually was a toss-up), I figured, what the hell, let's go with introspective instead of sloshy open mic night.

It was lovely. And it made me miss Catherine. She was so incredibly different from me but we both loved choral singing--that's how we met, really. It's been almost two and a half years since she died, but her phone number is still in my phone. Because I am so aware of her tonight, and because there is this whirring wind outside, stirring up the leftover leaves from last fall now that the snow has melted away to exposed earth, here's an excerpt from a bigger piece of writing about her/me/our friendship...


In college, I would stroll across the Quad, taking my sweet time, watching the ground for the best leaves I could find from the maple trees that surrounded the campus. I was especially drawn to scarlets and oranges that erupted into each other, unabashedly crossing fragile veins on such a tiny palette. When I found a perfect leaf, I would pick it up, straining to juggle the weight of the books on my back and the inevitable choir folder in my arms, and I would tuck the leaf inside the black pocket of the folder, safely burrowed next to Ralph Vaughn Williams or Francis Poulenc.

I was chronically late, divided between a life of consumption and daydreamer dawdling, and I would slowly saunter, weighted down by the mass of my backpack, around to the back of the music building. Liltingly, I would descend into the lower level where the women’s choir would already be rehearsing.

I would try to make my entrance as swift and silent as possible as I trudged, the sound of my bright pink rain boots impossible to stifle, to the second row, where I would find my seat next to Catherine. Predictably, I would set my things on the ground, shuffle through my folder, with its loose papers and coffee-stained sheets, and, as I pulled out the Poulenc, I would also quietly find the vivid maple leaf and hand it to Catherine, wordlessly, as we joined in the vocalises.

I don’t know how or why I picked up the habit of handing off autumn leaves, but it seemed to be a token of friendship. I gave leaves to lots of my choir friends—maybe it was a sort of clumsy apology for my chronic tardiness, or maybe I just wanted to share the tiny pieces of beauty, abundant but so often passed over, that I encountered on my sluggish walks.

Catherine would smile as I handed her another leaf, and she would tuck it into her choir folder, which was crisp and sturdy, her sheet music securely fastened into its bindings.


And one more. This one is in honor of hair. I am going to be a bridesmaid in my friend Nicole's wedding this spring and recently announced over lunch with Nicole and another bridesmaid that I am going to do something crazy and actually shave for this. Of course, I meant body hair. The other friend, not realizing exactly what I meant, said, "Your head?!"

I shaved my head when I got sober. I decided to do away with everything—the alcohol, the depression, the shame, and shedding my hair was a sort of living metaphor: a new beginning, shedding old skin. I loved the way the sun felt on my naked head, just like I loved the way the world looked through crisp, unaltered eyes.

Catherine didn’t have the choice. Losing her jet-black curls wasn’t about a new beginning.

One fall Saturday, when she was recovering from her first round of chemotherapy treatments, Catherine, her brother, and mother, and her aunt pulled up in front of my brick apartment building to pick me up for a day at the Renaissance Festival. I hadn’t seen Catherine in months, and I wasn’t sure what to expect about her energy or spirits, but when I plopped into the car next to her, in the backseat, she grinned and said, “Do you like my haircut?”

Laughing, I touched her bare head. “I love it!” I said.

Inside my brick apartment, in a wicker basket on the floor, there was a hat made of the softest lambs wool I could find that I had been knitting for her bald head. I hadn’t finished it yet, but I imagined her wearing the striped hat, red because it was her favorite color, the soft yarn gently resting on top of her head.

We drove through a rainy morning, the colors of the trees brightening against the backdrop of gray clouds. I sat, snug, in between Catherine and her brother Pat, who looked exactly like her, with his dark, dark curls and big brown eyes.

“I am going to shave my head in solidarity,” I announced, suddenly.

Catherine smiled and said, teasingly, “Again?”